Infosys Labs Briefings VOL 9 NO 5 2011 Environment Management – How to Set Priorities Right? By Parveen K Sharma and Bhishmaraj Shinde Manage non-production environments efficiently and achieve operational transformation S hall we dare ask: what is the importance and realize that even the best of the companies of testing (especially in IT projects)? may wilt under the pressure to deliver on time “Absolutely critical” would be the obvious and have paid heavy price for overlooking answer. Without a well-thought testing effort, (intentionally or unintentionally) test practices. the project will undoubtedly fail and will Good business organizations have impact the entire operational performance come to realize that to succeed in today’s of the solution. The fit-for-purpose testing cut throat competition a lot depends on how environments are as critical as some of the other effectively they prioritize their non-production components to ensure testing is successful. environments and are able to deliver high Now another question: what is the one of quality product in the market. And not the obvious options for a fund freeze when a surprisingly many organizations are planning project is low on funding or over budget? Well to improve availability and utilization of non- most of us would have thought about “testing” production environments to deliver consistent again and within testing process, few would and predictable testing services. have surely thought about the non-production If we quickly glance through various environment cost as well. For starters, non- industry best practices we notice that there is production environment means a single or a no clear guidance on how the non-production group of related applications and associated environment should be managed, that further data, hosted on a single or multiple servers, accentuates the need for robust and lean created to functionally mirror production or environment management practices. However, future production. with increasing competition and greater focus It takes only one Google search to realize on delivering ‘high quality solutions,’ non- the number of examples available to endorse production environments could be ignored at what has been stated in the above paragraph their own peril. 25 In this paper, we discuss the practices and stability is just as critical as the live that organizations could leverage to align, build environments. Modern test environments and integrate the necessary capabilities to deliver are inherently complex by nature and this test environments related needs on promise. The further makes environment stability all framework proposed in this paper focuses to the more a tougher task. establish cost effective and controlled environment management strategy by adopting “environment ■■ E x o r b i t a n t T e s t i n g C o s t : S e r v i c e lifecycle management” approach. It would aid operations in non-production IT organizations in delivering true value back to environments are loosely defined and do the stakeholders by defining specific focus around not really have the due rigor considering consistent and accurate service. their non-production label. This leads Based on the principles of repeatable to too many unauthorized changes to and consistent service model, environment environment, further leading to outages management and optimization services can (incidents) that result in costly delays in provide robust platform to lower total cost of the ‘go-live’ date for any project. operations through reduction in time-to-market, effective data volume, optimized non-production ■■ M a n a g e m e n t o f D i s t r i b u t e d landscapes and early detection of defects. Infrastructure: Often, critical and big budget projects tend to create their SOME KEY CHALLENGES own test environment that remain Today’s customers need better products as unattended and unmanaged and lead quickly as possible and they are not afraid to to infrastructure chaos. This fragmented switch to other brands to satisfy their need for footprint of infrastructure leads to improved products and solutions. This has increased support cost, multiple technical forced delivery teams across organizations to landscapes and increased operational rely heavily on effective testing methods and complexity. Dedicated environment their underlying infrastructure (read as non- management services would simplify production environments). Some of the key operations through standardization but challenges faced by organizations during their without compromising on fulfilling the engagement with non-production environments functional and business requirements. are described below. ■■ M a i n t a i n i n g C o n s i s t e n c y w h i l e ■■ Non-availability of and Instability Promoting Releases into Higher in Test Environments: With no Environments: In this globalized world clear guidelines and direction on the where development and integration of number of right environments needed, a product is managed by teams spread organizations tend to have either too across the world, it becomes all the more many or too less of test environments. difficult to have consistency in the code With ever complex business needs to cater that is being developed, merged and to and given the tight timelines for testing promoted across various levels in non- cycles, test environment availability production environment. 26 ENVIRONMENT MANAGEMENT appropriate structure to facilitate FRAMEWORK accountability at the appropriate level. It has increasingly become evident that organizations have started taking test ■■ Efficient Usage / Management: Promote environments management seriously and are virtualization, rationalization and considering testing activities as one amongst consolidation practices and having clear the key areas during a project delivery cycle. policies/expectations for environment Due to unavailability of a strong environments usage. management framework that caters to this need, organizations tend to manage test environments Four key elements of the proposed in an ad-hoc and chaotic fashion. environment management framework are: (a) test environment management, (b) process The proposed framework draws heavily from some key design principles as mentioned below. operations; (c) environment governance; and (d) continual improvement and optimization ■■ Consistent and Accurate Service: [Fig. 1 overleaf]. Adoption of service-oriented model and developing robust and efficient IT services ■■ Test Environment Management: Assess which are fit for purpose and fit for use. the client non-production capabilities and benchmark it against the current ■■ Dynamic and Real Time Provisioning: industry standards. Based on the Adjust features and services of baseline inputs define a best fit environment environments to meet customer’s rapidly management solution. Also identify any changing needs. environment sharing or improvements opportunity. ■■ Demand-based Footprints and Dynamic Execution Management: Modularize ■■ Process Operations: Based on the testing environment into multiple assessment and discovery of non- modules and loading them at runtime production capabilities define a consistent as requested. and repeatable service model. Align the environment lifecycle management with ■■ Interface with IT Service Management: ITIL principles and focus on improving Adopt environment lifecycle management efficiency and consistency. approach and define standard processes for environment monitoring, managing ■■ Environment Governance: Once initial changes/incidents and configuration processes are implemented, it is very management. critical to have compliance mechanism in place to make sure there are no ■■ R e g u l a t o r y C o m p l i a n c e a n d deviations from the agreed path. It is at Accountability: Verify the integrity of this stage that we define an appropriate privacy, security and data protection reporting mechanism for identified and decision making by establishing environment lifecycle framework. 27 Enablers Outputs Opportunities StrategicVision That are easy to implement, automate and provide substantial benefits To validate the requirement Prioritize Policies/ Guidelines To set the direction Test Environment Management Process Operations (Efficiency) (Consistency) Environment Governance (Compliance) The service improvement program based on inherent business value Identify Virtualization, Rationalization and Consolidation requirements Alignment Management Support Continual Improvement & Optimization To set the ball rolling With testing practices and project delivery framework to support environments requirements with clear accountability Power Levers Leveraging best practices such as CMMI, ITIL, PMBok, CoBIT, ISO/TS Standards, ISTQB & IEEE 829 Figure 1: Environment Management Framework Source: Infosys Research ■■ C o n t i n u a l I m p r o v e m e n t a n d for environments, processes to provision Optimization: Continuously improve environments as per test requirements, integration from the present state. This is what makes with project and test delivery framework(s) and the framework dynamic and adaptive reporting to gauge current service and set future in the changing times. The incremental targets is key to set up such governance. But gain on return on investment (ROI) is it really practical to define fit-for-purpose achieved not only during initial process environment strategy in the very first place? improvements but over a period of time Some practitioners/consultants can will provide the much needed competitive argue in the affirmative given that they already advantage to stay ahead in the race. have discovered the current state of existing environment landscape and have worked out ITERATIVE APPROACH TO plans to take the current state to the next level. ACHIEVE OPERATIONAL TRANSFORMATION At the same time there would be situations The business objective of any investment around where formulating strategy in the first place non-production environment management is is not easy given the various challenges as to strengthen environment governance and mentioned earlier. management practices so as to assist seamless Environment management and and consistent testing practices. Having an optimization framework is designed environment strategy that defines policies to be tailored for either kind of situation 26 Strategy Definition - Define Policy, Processes, Procedures and Metrics Processes Policies Guidelines Lessons Learnt Organization Effectiveness Discovery Discover and assess test environments Implementation Phased implementation over selected environments Implementation Plan Deployment Checklist Reporting Structure Figure 2: Iterative Approach Source: Infosys Research and accordingly provide customers a 4. Single service window to fulfill all dynamic and practical solution approach. environment related requirements The iterative approach of strategize-discover- leads to improved accountability, implement helps realizing benefits early as responsiveness and strong organizational well as continuously improves and matures security. environment management practice [Fig. 2]. 5. Informed business decisions through Some of the key benefits realized due an effective simulation of new business iterative approach are as follows: situations in test environments using up-to-date data. 1. Reduced time-to-market and faster turnaround time through use of higher 6. Protection of sensitive data in non- quality, reliable and consistent processes. production systems. 2. Consistent and accurate service by CONCLUSION providing fit-for-purpose test When the non-production environments exist environments to support and deliver in a chaotic and confused state, the objective of high–quality service delivery. delivering high quality products to users could get scuttled. 3. Lower total cost of operations through An unstable and unreliable test effective data volume, hardware environment leads to lesser testing time and requirements for nonproduction higher probability of exposing defects in the live landscapes and early detection of environment. A fit-for-purpose environment defects. management strategy will help organizations to 27 prioritize their non-production environments to Conference, 27th September, pp. 116- reduce their overall time-to-market and assist in 125. taking an informed business decision through 3. Light, M. (2009), Double-Checking Project effective simulation of new business scenarios Quality with Independent Verification in a stable test environment. and Validation, Gartner, Report, Gartner Research ID No. G00172026. Can be bought on http://www.gartner.com/ REFERENCES 1. Industry Trends in Outsourced Testing DisplayDocument?id=1234015. Services, IP Devel White Paper, October 4. C a n t w a l l , L . ( 2 0 0 7 ) , A r c h i t e c t i n g 2005. An Automated Test Environment, 2. Ng. S. P., Murnane, T., Reed, K., Grant, A TesLA Whitepaper sponsored by D. and Chen, T. Y. (2004), A Preliminary OnPath Technologies. Available at Survey on Software Testing Practices http://www.teslaalliance.org/ in Australia, in the Proceedings of media/pdfs/whitepaper/TesLA_ the Australian Software Engineering OnpathTechnologies_Whitepaper.pdf. 26 Author’s Profile PARVEEN SHARMA is a Lead Consultant with the FSIIMS – Infrastructure Transformation Services at Infosys. He can be reached at [email protected] BHISHMARAJ SHINDE is a Consultant with FSIIMS – Infrastructure Transformation Services at Infosys. He can be reached at [email protected] For information on obtaining additional copies, reprinting or translating articles, and all other correspondence, please contact: Email: [email protected] © Infosys Limited, 2011 Infosys acknowledges the proprietary rights of the trademarks and product names of the other companies mentioned in this issue of Infosys Labs Briefings. The information provided in this document is intended for the sole use of the recipient and for educational purposes only. Infosys makes no express or implied warranties relating to the information contained in this document or to any derived results obtained by the recipient from the use of the information in the document. 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